Shares in luxury retailer Coach (COH) have had a rough ride since we last looked at the stock in mid-2013. While world economies started to show signs of tentative growth in that time, a consumer recovery - particularly in Coach's home territory, the United States - has remained elusive.
Now, concern is mounting over luxury retailers' reliance on the Far East economies and customers in China, Hong Kong and Japan. That hasn't just hurt stocks such as Coach. Peers including Jimmy Choo (CHOO), Michael Kors (US:KORS) and Burberry (BRBY) have all been burnt.
That said, Coach's share price performance has been encouraging in recent weeks, moving 12 per cent higher between 3 and 16 December as analysts at US investment bank Piper Jaffray raised target prices after praising the group's recent marketing campaigns ahead of the all-important festive trading period. However, in a wider context, the share price performance over the past year has been resoundingly poor. Since peaking at an annual high of 4,356ȼ in February, the shares have lost 27 per cent of their value during the remaining 10 months of 2015.
